Friday, June 11, 2010

Packable Wind Sock Pole

Bruce Brown, of Flyohio.com makes a very nice, big, but lightweight, and easy set up pole and wind sock combination. You can make a homemade unit or units using these tips for free, however, as I’m of the opinion that you cant’ have too many wind indictors on the field.

I recycled an old two-person tent to make this. The tent itself, became a dust cover for my motor unit, and I used two of the ten-foot, shock-corded, tent poles to make my wind sock pole. Each section of these poles were originally only 24” long, but I wanted the collapsed length to fit into a small backpack. I cut the end off one pole, and removed the elastic shock-cord, and cut each section in half, to make ten twelve-inch sections. The pole is still ten-feet long, (actually just under 12 feet, if you count the ground peg/support) but it is significantly more portable.

The second pole was canibalized for parts, to salvage the metal end pieces, and I attached these pieces to the cut ends of the first pole. Then I just rethreaded the shock cord, and reassembled the lengths tying the cord at the bottom.

I even J-B Welded some small D rings, as guy line attachment points,at about the six foot mark, but I almost never peg it down.

The ground stake is an eight-inch length of steel rod, JB-Welded into a bit of aluminum tubing. Another tube nested in the base, gives a relatively solid base for my pole. It bows significantly in high wind, unless you guy line it to tent pegs, but that’s no big deal, and I almost never bother.

A fishing swivel, (Walmart - 3 for $4.00) fastened on one end with JB-Weld, is my free swiveling wind sock attachment.

(An aside about JB Weld… the company makes two related products: JB Weld and JB Quick. The Quick sets up in about 5 minutes, but isn’t as rock solid as the Weld which takes about eight hours to cure. I recommend the latter for virtually everything.)